


Love Notes

by azureheavens



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Canon Related, Gen, Humor, Light-Hearted, One Shot, Other, Slice of Life, Teases at relationships but that's all, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:23:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azureheavens/pseuds/azureheavens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pascal comes across several mysterious slips of paper, all of them written by someone professing their love to her! While Pascal doesn't give the love notes much thought, Cheria believes she has a good idea of who wrote them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Notes

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic a year ago and it's still my favorite thing. It's set near the end of the Future Arc, but the only real spoilers are name drops. This story is pure fun, so please enjoy!

_How hard it is to speak of love with words I cannot find..._

"Hmm..." Pascal pulled the small slip of paper close to her face, amber eyes squinting and scanning the poem fragment while a free finger tapped her chin. She ran the words through her head over and over before at last her eyes flicked wide open.

"Well! I still can't figure out who these are from!" With that she threw the paper behind her and settled back to work. The paper fluttered down to the floor amidst the rest of the clutter in Pascal's workshop, possibly to never be thought of again. Pascal turned back on her project for a mechanical Asbel and started scrawling away.

Pascal never did plan on thinking about the poem fragment again, but it was inevitable for it to come up again soon enough. This was the third slip she found hidden around her workshop, and all of them were shoved into different parts of the room. She found the first one a couple days ago when she had stopped to snack, a slip tucked in between a banana bunch. The second emerged a day later while she was rummaging for old parts to base her designs off of. And now the third was here, tightly taped around her pencil. Each time the slip met the same fate, a quick analysis before being flung to the floor and doomed to be forgotten. She at least figured out that the slips were related to each other, why else would they be showing up so soon together? Besides, what would Pascal need some poem for anyway?

"Just a little smidge and a half there, and..." Pascal made one last mark with a flourish and held up her blueprints to the light. "That should do it!"

"Should do what?"

Pascal gasped and turned around. "Sophie!"

Sure enough Sophie stood gloriously in the doorway with her head tilted at Pascal. Cheria entered in as well, her lips pursed in discomfort as she looked around the messy workshop. Like Pascal cared. She ran over to her new guests with a grin on her face, the blueprints in one hand, and her pencil in the other. "Oooh, visitors! Whatcha doing around here?"

Cheria frowned. "I'd like to ask the same thing. You just ran off from the group without warning! You shouldn't do that, you know?"

"Aw, but I had a brilliant idea! I just had to get it out of my head before, y'know, I forget! I'd have come right back when I was ready."

"But who knows when that would have been!"

Sophie peered up at the blueprints being waved around in Pascal's hand. "Is that a drawing of Asbel?"

Pascal grinned. "Yup! Drew it up just now. Wanna see the rest?" Sophie nodded and she and Pascal dashed back to the work bench. Cheria sighed, and walked in after them. Pascal was already chittering away. "See? There's the first draft, then I doodled over there, and-"

"Wait a minute. Sophie." Cheria placed a hand on the girl's shoulder to stop her. "You have something under your shoe. Lift your foot, please." Sophie did as she was told, and Cheria picked a small slip of paper off the bottom of her sole. "Thank you," she muttered while straightening up again.

Pascal didn't skip a beat. "And so while we were walking around I got to thinking, before we go back up to Fodra we should bring some extra va-voom with us in case-"

"Wait a minute!"

"Oh come on, Cheria! Why you gotta interrupt me all the time?"

Cheria didn't respond. She had the slip of paper in her hands. Her eyes raced across it and suddenly widened. " _Behold in passing by you, your mere touch is what I crave_... Where did this come from?"

"Oh, that? I guess that's second part I found a couple days ago. I forgot that was still around."

Sophie looked down at the slip of paper as well. "What is it from?" Sophie asked.

"Oh, I dunno." Pascal shrugged and started to tap her foot impatiently. "There's just been these weird slips of paper showing up around her lately. Who cares what they're from."

Cheria stood up straighter and clenched the slip tightly in her hands. A grave sense of importance overcame her. "Where are these slips now?"

"Around. I tossed them on the floor as soon as I found them."

"You tossed them? Un-believable!" Cheria turned around in a huff and faced to the rest of the workshop. She moved slowly forward, scanning the floor amidst the trash and the junk for more slips of paper. Sophie followed suit, unsure of what was even going on but still wanting to help.

"Ooh, so a treasure hunt is what you want, huh?" Pascal started to dance a little. "You'll find lots of good stuff here!"

Cheria shushed her and told everyone to keep looking. The three girls were silent as their search began. Eventually Pascal found the other two slips she had tossed to the floor, and Sophie came across a new slip taped underneath a table. Cheria herself found two more, one on the edge of the door frame and the other laying on top of Pascal's tools. Their search exhausted, they all gathered together again in the middle of the room, each reading off what they had found.

" _How hard it is to speak of love with words I cannot find. Underneath your sprightly ways, are feelings shared in kind?_ " Read Sophie, curiously.

" _Behold in passing by you, your mere touch is what I crave. Embrace and hold your brilliant soul for days and days and days._ " Read Pascal, dramatically.

" _Ruby hair and pastel blush, amber fire in your eyes... To have you meet my heart would bring me higher than moonrise._ " Read Cheria, dreamily.

A noble feeling of silence hung in the air. "That was pretty to read." Sophie smiled.

Pascal nodded. "Yeah, what a nice way to take a break in the middle of the day."

Cheria started to laugh softly. "You don't get it, do you Pascal? Don't you realize why we found these here?"

"Maybe I left the door open and the wind blew them in?" Pascal said.

"...No, because that would mean the wind would have had to tape them to everything."

Sophie's eyes went wide. "The wind can do that?"

"No, the wind can't do that." Cheria frowned. "But that's not the point. Isn't it obvious? There can only be one plausible explanation."

Pascal and Sophie leaned in. "Yes?"

"This," Cheria proclaimed with pride, "is a love poem. Someone is professing their love to Pascal! How romantic!"

"Whoa, seriously?" Pascal snapped up the slips from everyone and held them up close to her face. "That sure was nice of them to do."

"I'm very happy for you, Pascal," said Sophie, her hands held together in front of her heart.

Pascal rubbed the back of her head. "Really? I'm more confused. Why did they have to leave these slips all over my workshop like some stalker? They should just come right up to me and told me to my face! Or something like that."

"Maybe they're shy?" Sophie looked to Cheria for help. "Or maybe they didn't think that Pascal loved them back..."

Cheria smiled reassuringly. "No, I think he just wanted her to figure it out on her own." A faint blush colored Cheria's cheeks and she sighed wistfully. "I wish someone was thoughtful enough to do that for me."

Pascal held out the slips to Cheria. "You want them? I'll probably just throw them away again and forget, so I don't really need them."

Cheria's eyes flashed indignant at Pascal, but then she hesitated. "Don't say things like that. But yes, I'll hold on to them." She grabbed the six slips of paper and looked over what was written one last time. She had thought of something that might lead to who this secret admirer was, and sure enough it was true. Now, she just had to prove herself right.

 

* * *

 

Cheria made Pascal and Sophie swear to secrecy about the love poem when they finally returned to the group. She knew that the secret probably wasn't the safest with those two, but if she played her cards right she could figure out this mystery quite easily. The three girls' return to the four men, Asbel, Hubert, Malik, and Richard, was met with hasty and slightly suspicious excuses as to why it took Cheria and Sophie to bring back Pascal. Pascal was met with some reprimands that this was no time to run off when they were so close to be finishing this last ordeal. It didn't matter much since they still had business in the Amarcian Enclave, so the group didn't have to leave just yet.

In the meantime, Cheria kept the slips hidden in her hands as she worked up her courage. She was far from inconspicuous and the others gave her confused glances. Cheria denied there being something wrong. In fact, everything was perfect. She had read the slips repeatedly, and she just couldn't unsee the first letter of every line:

_H. U. B. E. R. T._

"Oh, Hubert?" Cheria asked sweetly when she was sure none of the others would listen in. Now was the best time to face him, before they left the enclave. "I need you to help me out with something."

Hubert stopped and turned, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "What is it? Did something happen while you were off looking for Pascal?"

"Oh no, nothing happened. At least, nothing you don't already know about." Cheria smiled coyly.

"...I'm afraid I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Of course you do!" Cheria hissed to keep the others from overhearing. "And I'm very impressed, Hubert, thinking of such a clever way to show your feelings." Convinced she saw a blush come on Hubert's cheeks, she held out her hand to reveal the slips before he could stammer out more denial. Hubert took the slips and studied them, his blush growing deeper and his eyebrows more shoved together as he did. "Well?" Cheria smirked. "Quite romantic, isn't it?"

Hubert clenched the slips in a shaking fist. "Explain these! Where were these found and how did you come across them? I demand answers!"

Cheria stomped her foot. "You don't need to yell at me!"

"What's going on over here?" The sudden disturbance brought Malik over to the bickering duo, his deep voice silencing the squabble. "The others have already gone on ahead, so what's the trouble?"

"These." Hubert dumped the slips of paper into Malik's hand. "Cheria claims I know something about the origin of the writing on these papers, but she refuses to explain how she found them!"

"I don't need to explain!" Cheria puffed her cheeks. "And I'm not going to tell you if you keep shouting at me." She turned to Malik. "I found these hidden in different places at Pascal's workshop when Sophie and I went to go look for her. Pascal was just going to throw these away without a second thought!"

Malik had just finished reading from the slips. "Hey, these are actually pretty good. Well done, Hubert."

"I have never seen those before in my life!"

Malik's face suddenly turned serious. "Any self-respecting writer shouldn't deny his work when it's being praised, especially when it's as important as a love poem."

"Then I'm afraid you're mistaken. I am no writer, and so this-" Hubert shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stammered, "love poem, as you call it, has nothing to do with me."

Cheria sighed loudly. "Honestly, Hubert. Just admit you wrote it! Look, you even used the letters in your name to start off each line!"

"Nice touch," Malik said with a smirk.

Hubert balked, then his eyes narrowed. "Perhaps someone else had devised this scheme to humiliate me and Pascal! And I bet I know who the culprits are."

"You don't mean us?" Cheria said. "I didn't write this, so that must mean..." Cheria slowly turned to Malik, then gasped. "Captain! You're in love with Pascal!?"

Malik stared at her. "Listen to what you're saying, Cheria."

"But, did you write this poem? You weren't trying to trick all of us, right?"

Malik looked from Hubert's glare to Cheria's gaze and sighed. "I knew I should have made the poems from Pascal to Hubert, instead of the other way around."

"Captain!"

"This is an outrage!"

 

* * *

 

Not too far away, but far enough to not hear the commotion happening just down the road, Pascal was showing off the amazing Amarcian chocolate fountain to Asbel, Richard, and Sophie.

"Such astounding architecture." Richard looked up at the height of the fountain, tapping his chin regally. "I should think that a structure such as this would be well loved in Barona."

Pascal nodded in agreement. "Well if you got a lot groggy geniuses in need of a pick-me-up, that's not a bad idea! Amarcian chocolate gives ya such a zip of energy that it keeps you awake for hours!" She snatched up a couple of spare mugs that were kept by the side of the fountain. "Anyone want to try some?"

Pascal held out a filled mug to Asbel, who took it with thanks. He was about to take a sip when he noticed Sophie was more withdrawn than normal which worried him. "What is it, Sophie? Is something wrong?" he asked, then bringing the mug to his lips.

"Asbel?" Sophie looked seriously into his eyes. "When will you write a love poem for Cheria?"

Asbel sputtered and spilled chocolate all down his clothes.


End file.
